


The Magnus Records 006 - Symbiosis

by ErinsWorks



Series: The Magnus Records [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Magnus Records
Genre: "Sex Scenes" but it's described about as graphically as the one from Squirm, AU: The entities are nice and the world is awful., Alternate Universe, But just in case it makes you uncomfortable!, F/M, warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 06:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20943743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinsWorks/pseuds/ErinsWorks
Summary: In another world filled with watchful eyes, censoring governments, and a horrible parasite called Argenvermi, perhaps one Timothy Hodge might have lost his cushy job, and contracted a nasty condition. Perhaps, along the way, he would find more than a simple hook up. And most importantly... Perhaps Harriet Lee would have a more polite encounter in that back alley.Here at the Magnus Sanctuary, London, we will find out.Start your interview. Share your hope.





	The Magnus Records 006 - Symbiosis

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: Incredibly ungraphically described sex, and terminal illness. If either of those topics are strict no-goes but you'd still like to follow the ongoing plot, there will be a TLDR at the end.

**MAG006 – Resident 1994 – “Symbiosis”**

**KEEPER**

Interview with Timothy Hodge, regarding his last meeting with his romantic partner _ Resident 1989 _\- one Harriet Lee- and her subsequent disappearance. Original interview taken December 9th 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Record Keeper of the Magnus Institute, London. Interview begins.

**KEEPER (INTERVIEW)**

I don't know what happened. I know she's still alive, but... I haven’t seen her for a month now. 

Let me start at the beginning. I worked with The Monarchy, in Design Correction. That effectively means I’m assigned to big companies and organizations, to make sure that everything that needs to be censored is censored, and that everything that needs to be organized some way or another is organized in that way. It wasn’t _ fun _ work, but it paid well enough, and it meant that I could afford a decent flat near to some of the more exciting clubs and bars. I’d just finished up with a really draining project at the time, and I’d decided to head out and have a night of fun, you know? Trouble is, as soon as I left my doorway I collapsed to the floor. Sudden kidney failure. 

A neighbor of mine, I think his name was Fellowes, rushed me to the nearest medical facility- The Sanctuary, that is- and threw me with the rest of the squirming invalids here. Turns out, I had Argenvermi. _ Silverworm _. 

You probably know everything about the parasite, but it was the usual symptoms: _ “vomiting, thirst, compromised kidneys, trouble breathing, and occasional episodes of minor cardiac arrest”. _ Like almost all cases, I was incurable. The worms were a part of my vascular system now, and any attempts to get rid of them would turn me into a walking talking blood bag. I just had to live with it until my eventual painful death, which the doctor gave me seven months till. So, I made it my mission to squeeze the most out of my seven months.

Unfortunately, your dating pool is kind of limited when you have Argenvermi. It spreads through any body fluid, any unfiltered water, and even through _ touch _ if you’re still in the early stages. Plus, fun fact, the Monarchy doesn’t let people with Argenvermi stay under their employment. So I got my death notice and my pink slip in the same week. I was practically stuck here. Stuck in the quarantined section of the tiny medical wing- no offense- unable to leave without wearing those stupid masks you see on doctors on T.V. And- and I know this probably shouldn’t have been my top priority but- do you know how many single girls there were in this building who already _ had _ Silverworm? Five.

… But one of those five was the best girl I have ever met. 

Her name was Harriet Lee. Twenty-four, with this beautiful red hair, and these torn-up skinny jeans, and… well, she had a way with makeup that made her pretty face even prettier. Even if she wasn't one of the _ five people _ I could easily get intimate with without some level of risk, I would've fallen for her. So of course during our afternoon lunch, she and I started talking.

We talked for hours and hours. We had a lot in common, and it turns out we'd gone to the same schools as kids. I found out that she had gotten out of college two years ago, and shortly after she contracted Silverworm from an unlucky swim. She was given 8 months by the doctors, and she'd outlived that death date by 16. She said she knew it was a cliche, but, she wanted to live each day like it was her very last. I told her I'd love to do the same, as long as she was here.

We lived freely-and-carefree like that for a while. I got a new job and so did she. We hooked up, fell in love a bit, moved out of the Sanctuary and into a flat. Every night was sloppy kisses and sloppier… well, you know. I'm not unattractive, I know that, and I can only hope she loved staring down at me as much as I loved looking up at her.

Four weeks ago, she got through the door looking… much healthier. Her eyes were brighter. She seemed like she had a weight off her chest. Her skin seemed less pale. I asked if she'd gone to the spa today, and she burst into laughter. She asked if it looked like either of us had the money to go on a spa-day. I told her that unless her job had gotten a lot more dangerous, then no. No it didn't.

She kissed me then. And I kissed back. And as she kissed me, I felt my throat get less dry, and I felt my skin get less clammy, and my head hurt a little less. It felt like the rush after a jog, that… _ Runner's high, _ or whatever its called. It felt fantastic. Kissing her felt _ healthy. _ So I kept kissing her. And she reached for the hem of my shirt and… well, we had sex. But that doesn't matter. What happened _ afterwards _ is more important.

Once we were finished, lying on the bed, I realized that there was a half-meter of gauze wrapped around her right forearm. I don't know how I missed it, but it was certainly there, carefully tied off in a bow. I started to ask Harriet about it and she just… smiled. She said that a woman with silky black hair in a long red dress, calling herself "Prentiss" had offered her help: She said that Prentiss had the cure for Harriet's silverworm, and her cough, and _ everything _she was sick with. All she had to do... was stick out her arm.

I blinked a bit, and asked if she felt alright. Clearly, this sounded like she'd been drugged, and I felt horrified that I'd taken advantage of her. She assured me quite clearly that she hadn't been drugged, not at all: _ she really was cured. _

I didn't believe her. I _ couldn't _ believe that all it took to save my girlfriend from this _ damn _ parasite was a chance meeting in the street with a woman in red. I asked what happened afterwards, and she just _ smiled _ again, like she knew something I didn't. She asked me if I knew anything about Tick Birds. I was even more confused than I was at the start, but I told her to go on.

Harriet explained that Tick Birds live in symbiosis with bigger animals: They find animals who are being eaten alive by parasites, and then peck those parasites right off. The Tick Birds get _ food _ , and the animals are no longer being _ fed on _. It's a perfect relationship. The only thing that suffers is the sickness.

I asked what this had to do with anything. 

Harriet stretched out her arm, and closed her eyes. Without warning, without explanation, her arm suddenly began to _ glow _ as a dozen ethereal birds just _ appeared. _ They felt… angelic. Holy. The birds, gently glowing, stepping across her arm, pecked at her skin, phasing through it like ghosts. When they pulled away… tiny, tiny worms came with them. _ They were eating her parasites _, I realized. They fed. Harriet was no longer being fed on. It was just like she said: symbiosis.

The birds disappeared again, as Harriet reached out to cup my face. She kissed me for the last time, and whispered something. I was still a bit dazed and confused, so I'm not sure what she said... I think it might have been a goodbye. I hope it was a goodbye.

She left me standing there. She hasn't come back since, she won’t respond to my calls, and I have no real evidence to suggest that she’s still alive. But sometimes, in the corner of my eye, I see something that should be impossible here in London. Perched on windowsills, or lampposts, or garden edges, I see them.

Sometimes I see Tick Birds.

**KEEPER**

Interview ends.

I've been wondering when we'd get a right and proper _ love story _ in these interviews. I suppose it was only a matter of time before Gertrude's therapy sessions became nothing more than a setting for people to wax nostalgic about their lost loves and woes. Regardless of the psychiatric merit of this interview, a brief search reveals that Harriet Lee was indeed reported missing in late 2014, and did indeed contract Argenvermi prior to coming under the sanctuary’s care. She is currently presumed dead, having been missing for two years. More interestingly, Timothy Hodge has also been missing-presumed-dead since early 2015.

Something far more intriguing lies within this particular interview however: Harriet Lee’s description of a woman with a red dress and long flowing black hair evokes the image of one _ Doctor J. Prentiss, _ who has- perhaps unsurprisingly- been _ missing and presumed dead _for nearly three years. Doctor Prentiss was a specialist in anti-parasitological medicine, a serious contributor in the effort to cure the Argenvermi Parasite, and a local legend within any hospital in a mile-wide radius. But perhaps most importantly… she was an occasional medical consultant for The Magnus Sanctuary.

Doctor Prentiss’s disappearance was well recorded by The Sanctuary. She had contracted the very disease she sought to cure, and promptly stormed out of the medical wing upon discovering this. She was heard shouting that, quote: _ “I will find the cure. I will be clean again. I promise that. I promise all of you.” _If this interview is to be believed- which, to be clear, it is not- It would seem that the good doctor has found her cure after all. And as it turns out, that cure is a flock of glowing angel birds.

I have begun to believe that Gertrude has not forged these documents. Given the sheer number of them, and their consistently accurate connections to the residents who allegedly made them, it would be impossible to fabricate this number of them while maintaining the Records this pristinely. This leaves us with three distinct options. Option 1: The common thread of the supernatural in these specific interviews is both entirely coincidental and explainable. Option 2: As I suggested in my third recording, Gertrude drugged her clients, so as to induce both hallucinations and false memories. Option 3: The supernatural is real, and it has a fondness for the United Monarchy of Britain.

I think that we can all agree that the last notion is entirely absurd-

_ <<Knocking>> _

… Come in.

_ <<Door opens>> _

**ELIAS**

Hello, Records Keeper.

**KEEPER**

Ah, hello Mr. Bouchard-

**ELIAS**

No need to be so formal, Jon. Unless formality makes you comfortable, of course. Speaking of; Have you been comfortable, Jon?

**KEEPER**

… With my new job?

**ELIAS**

Precisely, yes. Is there anything I could change about this Records Room to make you feel safer? The windows, perhaps? Anything at all.

**KEEPER**

… No, everything I can think of seems… fine.

**ELIAS**

Excellent. I wouldn't have it any other way. 

… What are you doing, by the way? 

**KEEPER**

I'm… recording interviews. Resident interviews made with Gertrude Robinson. For personal reference.

**ELIAS**

Yes, I suppose that makes sense. You're not sharing them with anyone, yes?

**KEEPER**

No, of course not sir.

**ELIAS**

Perfect.

**KEEPER**

… So I'm not… in trouble, or anything?

**ELIAS**

No, no. I'm just checking in.

**KEEPER**

… I see.

Mr. Bouchard, did you know about Gertrude's habit of _ locking _the records-

**ELIAS**

_ (Quickly, clearly not going to discuss it.) _No, I don't like to pry. Have a good afternoon Jon.

_ <<Door slams>> _

**KEEPER**

… Well then.

End recording.

**Author's Note:**

> TLDR: Timothy gets Argenvermi, meets Harriet in the infirmary, they move in together, Harriet gets cured by one "Doctor Prentiss" and vanishes of mysterious circumstances shortly after, presumably still alive. (End of statement) Jon and Elias have a very uncomfortable conversation.
> 
> So! This marks the first real landmark in the plot of my would-be Season One of The Magnus Records. Again, not too proud of it, but I'd love for y'all to prove me wrong with kudos!
> 
> Also, apologies for the format change with that end convo, it was the only way to make it even slightly legible.


End file.
